TheRedSnifit
Member
Welcome to Trigger Warning society. Anything you do that slightly offends her will land you that second counseling, including "steering clear" of her. Not much you can do about it.
I just got counseled for workplace sexual harassment
- Thread starter TrueGrime
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Fenderputty
Banned
Imagine if the OP had button fly.
UnluckyKate
Member
So... anyone can screw up your carreer and your life that easily in the US ?
we should've put a warning on the backlash.
Yes.
But it's because some people fuck up so bad when those rules aren't around. Sexual harassment is a real thing for women in the workforce. Unfortunately, OP has to pay for it.
Is this real?
It's not as if people's dislike of trigger warning are preventing them from becoming accepted and used in more places.
TrueGrime
Member
No no. It isn't cut and dry like that. The rules are there to protect others and I can understand why my boss went the route of mentioning sexual harassment. Like I mentioned many times before, I was in the wrong. I could have taken a few more seconds to check myself in the bathroom. Can't fault to woman for feeling uncomfortable and bringing it up to a supervisor. The supervisor and my boss handled it well. All bases were covered in the actions that took place (inaction can lead to liability). My career is far from screwed up.
Vampirolol
Member
If this happened to me I would have spent my life to ruin her legally.
GravityMan
Member
The OP's incident and counseling doesn't surprise me at all. I've heard a few stories over the years about men getting fired just because he looked at a woman a bit too long, or even just greeting her...and she reported him for sexual harassment. Companies tend to have a near-zero or zero tolerance policy with sexual harassment claims (and understandably so) and it appears the same is true in the military.
If possible, the OP's superior and the woman's superior should look into the possibility of transferring either the woman or the OP to another building in order to minimize or eliminate the possibility of the two crossing each other's paths. A hint of awkwardness or uncomfortable-ness may always linger as long as the two work in the same building, even taking into account the OP's being banned from the breakroom while she's in there.
If possible, the OP's superior and the woman's superior should look into the possibility of transferring either the woman or the OP to another building in order to minimize or eliminate the possibility of the two crossing each other's paths. A hint of awkwardness or uncomfortable-ness may always linger as long as the two work in the same building, even taking into account the OP's being banned from the breakroom while she's in there.
Indeed. A hint of uncomfortableness is poison for a productive work environment. I am a bit more old school though - anyone who makes another person feel uncomfortable should be fired on the spot. None of this "informal chat" or "formal warning" shit or trying to keep them separated. At some point, somewhere in their lives, OP may encounter this woman in an awkward environment, and who knows what kind of hell is going to break loose when she remembers him fondling his zipper. It may even result in an uncomfortable, awkward, rapey and problematic "Hey". God save us all. We must do everything in our power to prevent this outcome.
Surface of Me
I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
I have no problem with them for PTSD people or stuff like that, but most of it seems to be people who dont think they should ever have to be uncomfortable ever.
Why? That'd be a terrible way to respond; in this case it seems clear that it resulted from a misunderstanding, and both the OP and bosses handled it well enough.
Seriously, all this line of thinking does is prevent women from coming forward when they've been sexually harassed in the workplace.
My normal stance against these sorts of issues is that political correctness causes an unnecessary degree of hypersensitivity in society, in essence creating offense where none is intended.
But... the bigger problem that sits above the unnecessary hypersensitivity is just the lack of contextual judgement and lack of communication in society.
We partition the hell out of everything and wash our hands of the need to actually exercise sound judgement.
Checking your fly is fine.
Reporting is fine.
Informing that an offense is perceived is fine.
But needing to adhere to a rule set conceived without full appreciation of all the complex circumstances that can occur is where the failure occurs. There's no recourse for finer grain judgment in a by the book society - and as such there'll always be cases where the rules are suboptimally applied to the complex situation.
And this is as true of moral judgement as well. It's failure at multiple levels towards adaptive circumstances - resulting in obviously wrong and overblown judgments.
The silver lining in this case is that the consequence in the grand scheme of things is trivial (as opposed to someone getting their head blown off), and allows the OP a sharp lesson to be more guarded about his behaviour... although without poor judgement this wouldn't be as necessary.
But... the bigger problem that sits above the unnecessary hypersensitivity is just the lack of contextual judgement and lack of communication in society.
We partition the hell out of everything and wash our hands of the need to actually exercise sound judgement.
Checking your fly is fine.
Reporting is fine.
Informing that an offense is perceived is fine.
But needing to adhere to a rule set conceived without full appreciation of all the complex circumstances that can occur is where the failure occurs. There's no recourse for finer grain judgment in a by the book society - and as such there'll always be cases where the rules are suboptimally applied to the complex situation.
And this is as true of moral judgement as well. It's failure at multiple levels towards adaptive circumstances - resulting in obviously wrong and overblown judgments.
The silver lining in this case is that the consequence in the grand scheme of things is trivial (as opposed to someone getting their head blown off), and allows the OP a sharp lesson to be more guarded about his behaviour... although without poor judgement this wouldn't be as necessary.
One of my clients is heavily involved in the education field and I must look like the most antisocial person in the world because they hug each other hello/goodbye and I just duck out when I'm done.
TrueGrime
Member
This is true. The rules and standards put in place within this military are because a lot of cases where women came forward with legitimate cases of harassment they were met with retribution from their commands and peers.
A few years ago there was a huge investigation into sexual misconduct at the Air Force academy that blew sexual harassment wide open and into the media in terms of how DoD handled these cases. It was a slaughter. I can remember since then that there has been an iron clad cracking down and no complaint no matter how minuscule would go without action.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I remember watching a video, The Invisible War, it was a very sad video. The professor though kept going off like women should never join period and by the time it had ended everyone seemed scared of the military if they were female. I think it's a very serious issue, but I don't think it should scare everyone away. They were handing out tissues like they were passing around tests. It's your fly, it goes down because the zipper can wear out. It's very important that you check, double check, etc. every single time you walk out of the restroom or then some.
The cases brought up and the millions of cases that don't get brought up need investigation and the criminals need to be punished, but your fly? Jeez..
We take everything to an extent of communism. Take matters seriously, but don't put people under fire for stuff like this. There's probably millions of guys sitting on the sex registry who did less. It's a fucked up situation and no one wants to make rules. It's like the people who still believe doctors are Gods. It's at least a system that lacks proper management and authority. There's no order or code to follow if that person is doing the crime and they're the ones in charge of everything. FUBAR
Forceatowulf
G***n S**n*bi
Yeah... I've actually done this before now that I think about it. On more than one occasion too.... now I'm gonna be paranoid Haha
It's scary thinking a simple misunderstanding could risk your job though. shesh.
It's scary thinking a simple misunderstanding could risk your job though. shesh.
...to Ben Stiller.
Yeah, it's the one aspect of social justice I think is pretty ridiculous.
EDIT:
Well, at least you're calling her a human being. That's something.
If this has a chance to go on your record i would most certainly try to find a way to fight it. It's good that they take complaints seriously, but it's bs if they just take one side of a story and go with it. This could have serious consequences for your reputation and career.
.. I just realized that if i made a complaint about little things like the incident mentioned in the OP i would have very few colleagues left by now. All repeat offenders of one thing or another.
.. I just realized that if i made a complaint about little things like the incident mentioned in the OP i would have very few colleagues left by now. All repeat offenders of one thing or another.
reptilescorpio
Member
Shit I do this basically every time I leave the bathroom at work. Would hate for people to have to see my underwear, just seems like common sense to check.
JensenBeeswax
Member
Grimes man, you're good people. I'm anger-sweating a little just putting myself in this situation.
I had a female co-worker file a sexual harassment claim against me for eating a peach at my desk while she was present in the room. She thought it was innuendo. I was enjoying mah fruit.
My boss took it seriously and told me he would send me to a sexual harassment course. I told him that they work by the hour and he's paying for it, so I'll run every single possible and potetially viable action I perform during the day by them to have a list in writing of acceptable behavior in the workplace. He tried my bluff, and he ended up with a bill for 400 hours of work on a 6 hour course. He was not happy. Neither was I.
My boss took it seriously and told me he would send me to a sexual harassment course. I told him that they work by the hour and he's paying for it, so I'll run every single possible and potetially viable action I perform during the day by them to have a list in writing of acceptable behavior in the workplace. He tried my bluff, and he ended up with a bill for 400 hours of work on a 6 hour course. He was not happy. Neither was I.
QuicheFontaine
Member
For safety announce it to the room, like "Ok, just going to check the old fly here...make sure I'm not hanging low". Then people will know you're not caressing your penis.
wat now
Uh, what. Y'know what, I take back what I said about the woman in OP's post being a bitch.
This is what a bitch is.
So what was the outcome? Did they at least say eating a peach is perfectly ok? lol because, damn.
Jacksinthe
Banned
This is horrible to hear. For future reference, use the Belt Buckle method. Grab your buckle with your left hand as if adjusting its placement and let your middle finger slip into the top of the fold to check for zipper upness. 60% of the time it works every time.
What? Was this in Holland? I would have guessed people were a bit less sensitive when it comes to that sort of stuff. I guess i was wrong.
cubicle47b
Member
Were you staring at her the whole time and sucking up the juices?
Deaf Spacker
Memb
Well shit, I know what I'm doing next time my female colleague eats a banana.
Agreed. Only risk if it wasn't actually her that reported it.
Snkfanatic
Banned
I can't wrap my head around this. I really can't understand someone that is that sensitive to where someone else getting hugged is harassment. Am I missing something?
Well, actually, eating a peach is NOT ok, because SOME people MIGHT interpret it as something else. So I asked about a female co-worker eating a banana and how I COULD interpret that as something else. I was correct, eating a banana, sausage or cucumber is also not acceptable in an environment where people might take offense. From that day forth, I banned all types of phallic and yonic edables from the cafeteria.
BossLackey
Gold Member
That is absolutely ridiculous. What a bitch.
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